(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an art that is preferable to select specific data from among a plurality of data, and for example, an art for selecting music data to be reproduced in additon to display of a still image and a moving image.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in image display software and presentation software, there is known a function called “slide show” which reproduces a plurality of still images and moving images while sequentially changing over them. Hereinafter, the still image and the moving image may be simply referred to as image data.
Further, according to this slide show, reproduction of music (music data) may be possible as a BGM (Background Music) in addition to display of the image.
In the meantime, as a conventional method of selecting the music data to be reproduced on such a slide show, for example, the following (1) to (3) methods are known.    (1) A user manually selects the music data to be reproduced as the BGM from among a plurality of music data saved in a PC (Personal Computer) in advance and reproduces it, and then, the user starts a slide show during reproduction of the music data.    (2) Relating the image data with the music data in advance, the user reproduces this related music data upon reproduction of the image data (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. HEI9-22416 and 8-101907).    (3) The user manually selects the music data as the BGM and reproduces it during execution of the slide show.
However, according to the above-described conventional method of selecting the music data, for example, according to the methods (1) and (3), the user is required to perform the selection operation with respect to the music data to be reproduced, so that these methods are complicated. Particularly, when there are many music data, it is complicated to select the specific music data from among these many music data. As a result, the user often selects the same music data every time, which leads to a lack of pleasure for a pastime.
In addition, according to the above-described method (2), there is a problem that many operations are required to relate the image data with the music data and the operations are complicated. Further, for example, when new music data is added, in order to reproduce this new music data together with the image data, the operation for relating them should be separately carried out, so that this method is not convenient.